For 19 years, counsellor caseworker Inge McGinn has been supporting people and families through some of life’s most challenging moments at Peninsula Home Hospice. But her connection to palliative care began long before she joined the team.
Around 25 years ago, one of Inge’s four daughters was living with severe asthma and collapsed lungs. One day, she curled up on the bed and asked, “Mum, when am I going to die?”
Despite already working as a family counsellor, Inge realised she didn’t know how to answer.
“That question really challenged me,” she recalls. “I started searching for how to answer it, and that led me into exploring work in palliative care.”
Inge went on to spend seven or eight years with Very Special Kids, supporting children with life-limiting illnesses across the Mornington Peninsula. Based from Peninsula Home Hospice’s offices, she became familiar with the PHH team and the work they were doing.
“I just loved the work,” she says. “It really whet my appetite to join the team.”
Nineteen years later, the sense of purpose she found then remains one of the biggest reasons she stays.
“The ability to serve my local community and do work that is so important keeps me highly engaged,” Inge says. “To be able to speak freely about something that can still feel taboo, and to model that openness within families and homes, is an incredible privilege.”
For Inge, good palliative care means looking well beyond a person’s physical symptoms. A terminal diagnosis can affect relationships, identity, beliefs, finances, family roles and a person’s sense of hope.
Her role encompasses what she describes as the “psychosocial and spiritual” aspects of care, alongside very practical support.
“It might be, ‘How do I find money to pay for medication?’ or ‘How do I keep the house clean while I’m caring for someone?’ Those practical things are just as important as the emotional support. It’s all part of looking after the whole person.”
Importantly, that support extends beyond the individual receiving palliative care.
“The patient isn’t the only person we’re caring for. It’s the whole unit of care — the family and the people supporting them,” Inge explains.
Peninsula Home Hospice can also continue providing bereavement support to loved ones for up to 18 months after a person dies.
Over nearly two decades, Inge has seen attitudes towards death and dying begin to change. Younger generations, in particular, are increasingly willing to ask questions and explore their choices around care, dying, funerals and grief.
And while her work inevitably involves sadness, it is the small moments of growth and connection that stay with her most.
“It’s the smile when someone achieves something they wanted to achieve, or finds a new glimpse of hope,” she says. “It’s seeing families discover strength they didn’t know they had.”
That idea of hope is something Inge has seen evolve many times. Early in an illness, hope might mean a cure or many more years of life. Later, it might become the hope of attending a daughter’s wedding, celebrating a birthday or simply seeing someone important one more time.
“Hope is still there. It just changes.”
Inge sees the PHH team’s role as quietly helping people create the experience that is right for them — rather than taking over.
“Our role is almost like wallpaper. We’re in the background, supporting you to do this the way you want to do it. If we’ve built trust and confidence and empowered people to make decisions and problem-solve, we don’t need to be at the centre.”
It is a philosophy that sums up Inge’s approach to 19 years of caring for her community.
Asked to describe that time in just three words, her answer comes easily:
“Privilege, service and community.”
